Nightsong
by UnluckyAmulet
Summary: In which Bakugou can't sleep and he discovers an unexpected side to one of his classmates. Jirou finds something unexpected in Bakugou. Oneshot.


Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia.

So I love this ship and though I was a bit hesitant to post this, I had to contribute to the cause.

Enjoy!

* * *

 _Sometimes, he just wanted the world to shut the fuck up._

Bakugou Katsuki could not be considered a quiet individual. His classmates would happily inform anyone that would listen that one of Bakugou's favourite ways to enter a fight was to scream "DIE!" at his opponents, complete with ear-ringing explosions bursting from his palms. Sometimes his palms would even crackle ominously merely from being annoyed, his teeth clenched so hard you could almost hear them grinding. In other words, with him, loudness was unavoidable, even if he'd calmed down significantly since he first entered UA Academy.

That didn't mean he enjoyed noise all the goddamn time, especially when he was _trying to fucking sleep._

Needless to say, though he was hardly the exception, Bakugou was having trouble adjusting to dorm life. It wasn't that he especially wanted to go home (because who the hell in his position _would?_ ) but dealing with his idiot classmates day in and out was putting considerable strain on his already-frayed nerves. Not to mention now that even night-time didn't grant him much reprieve, as a bunch of his classmates downstairs in the living area were shrieking and laughing. God knows at what, but it was bound to be stupid, whatever it was.

Another time, another place, he might well have kicked his door open, palms ablaze and sorted out his damn self, but he really didn't feel like listening to another one of Aizawa's bitchfits, especially right off the heels of the last one, and since apparently everybody else seemed to find it so fucking funny…

A snarl bubbled in his throat at the thought, and at the chorus of laughter ringing out as if to confirm it, and Bakugou's knuckles clenched so hard they turned white. He had never been very good at sitting still and waiting for something to pass and he wasn't about to start now. With a growl, Bakugou wrenched the covers off and stood up. Since he usually slept in a tank top and jogging bottoms, he simply stalked over to the window and wrenched it open, teeth gritting at the little squeak.

Night air brushed over his skin, the scent of earth after a recent rainfall sharp and tangy in the gentle breeze. Bracing his bare feet on the windowsill, Bakugou began to scale the side of the building, which was child's play compared to a cliff face. He didn't know if they were technically allowed to be up there, but since none of the teachers had expressly stated it to be forbidden, it was fair game as far as Bakugou was concerned. Anyway, he wasn't about to beg permission from anybody.

Anyway, climbing onto the roof had to be a much smaller offence than exploding the living room.

His experience with mountain climbing made scaling the dorms a piece of cake, even barefoot. As Bakugou climbed, however, his ears picked up a sound, inbetween the sounds of his own grunting and the muffled bursts of laughter and shouts from inside. He paused, cocking his head to listen.

The gentle strumming of a guitar floated through the air, the notes clearer now that Bakugou had halted his progress and was nearly at the lip of the guttering wrapped around the roof.

Something about the music was pleasing to him and he hung there for a moment, ignoring the pressure on his fingers and toes. Normally Bakugou's musical tastes tended to lean towards his personality – brash, relentless and prone to screaming – but there was something about the melody that compelled him to absorb it, like he was breathing it in as he listened. The instrument of choice prevented it from being too sappy and therefore unworthy of his time, but there was an air of melancholy, a kind of yearning that seemed precisely honed to hit the heart of whoever heard it.

Now intrigued, despite himself, and welcoming a distraction, Bakugou resumed climbing. When he hauled himself onto the roof, tiles digging into his legs, he spotted a figure sitting cross-legged on the flattest part of the rooftop.

Jirou didn't notice him, so busy was she with the acoustic guitar in her lap. The instrument had obviously seen better days, but it was undeniably well cared for nonetheless, with a couple of stickers patching over where the wood had chipped or faded. There was a look on Jirou's face that was difficult to describe (certainly for Bakugou, anyway), but it was a marked difference from her usual expression of boredom. Instead, she had a little smile on her face, eyes closed, her tilted just a little as she played, just like his had been moments ago. Jirou knew the guitar so well that she didn't even need to watch her fingers. Though Bakugou was no musician (hell, only reason he could play the drums was because his parents thought it might give him a "constructive outlook for his aggression". Ha!) it was strange how…comfortable she seemed like this, an easy confidence radiating from her that ironically wasn't present with her usual snarky attitude. Right now, there were no defences, any tension was drained from her, playing guitar so serenely under the moonlight.

Bakugou snorted. Since when did he notice so much about Ears, anyway?

The noise broke Jirou out of her music-induced trance and her eyes snapped open with a gasp. She whipped her head around towards the source of the noise, her face a little red, her earjacks rising defensively, like snakes about to lunge.

"Wha- Bakugou?!" she spluttered, attempting to regain some of her usual composure by frowning at the sudden intrusion. "What are you doing up here?!"

"Could ask you the same question," Bakugou replied, throwing the retort down like an ace. He was vaguely amused by her reaction – you'd think he'd accidentally walked in on her changing.

"I just…" Jirou said, taping the ends of her earjacks together, as she often did when she was flustered. "I couldn't sleep and it's a nice night. I thought I'd practise."

Without really making a conscious decision to do so, Bakugou tilted his head up at the moon, which was round as an orange and peering down at them like a gigantic, milky-white eye.

"Guess it is," he grunted.

"Now it's my turn! Why are you up here? Normally you go to bed super early, don't you?"

"How the fuck is anybody supposed to sleep with all that goddamn racket down there?" Bakugou demanded, some of his bad mood returning to him now that he'd been reminded of its source.

Jirou cocked her head, no doubt able to hear said goddamn racket much better than he could in his room, even from up here.

"Yeah, I see what you mean," she said after a moment, looking faintly exasperated.

Bakugou nodded once, and that seemed to be enough for Jirou. She didn't ask him why he wasn't joining in with them or trying to cajole him out of his bad mood. And oddly, that was what made Bakugou relax, his teeth no longer gritted now that he knew no nagging refrain on his behaviour was coming.

"So what was that, anyway?" he asked, sliding down into a sitting position. "Before."

"Oh, well…" Jirou said, doing the earphone-twiddling thing again, shifting position just slightly. "Just something I was fine-tuning, I guess. I'm still trying to get the lyrics right…"

"Wait, you wrote it?" Bakugou frowned, not angrily, just in concentration.

"Yeah. My dad's a musician, so I guess he passed the music bug onto me. Um, but…look, can you not tell anyone I was up here?"

Bakugou scoffed at that, though perhaps not quite as vehemently as he could have done. The breeze kicked up again, ruffling his hair and Jirou's clothes.

"Who the fuck would I go blabbing to, anyway?" he said.

Jirou considered this, looking to the side for a moment as if she might find an answer in the treeline below them and she had to concede that he had a point. He was hardly a gossip and he certainly wasn't the type to snitch.

"Why would you care about what those fuckers think, anyway?" he asked, though it was phrased more like a demand. "It ain't their business."

Jirou blinked, not exactly expecting the question.

"Well…"

She twisted an earphone jack around her finger as she tried to think of a suitable way to answer that – she knew why she preferred to keep her punk rocker credentials a secret, but articulating so that it didn't sound ridiculous was a bit more of a tricky task.

"I guess it's…just something personal," she said, glancing at Bakugou to gauge if he'd taken offence to that, but his face was still set in a neutral frown, so she continued. "Something that's just mine. Before I decided to become a Pro, I was gonna be a musician, like my Dad. Obviously, my training and stuff come first, and I've never regretted my decision or anything, but…sometimes I like to remember. I mean, nothing says I have to be one and totally abandon the other, right?"

Though Jirou's expression did not waver, it sounded to Bakugou that she was trying to convince herself more than anything. He narrowed his eyes a fraction, before snorting and leaning his back against the wall behind him, uncaring of the chill on his bare skin.

"Well, go on," he said abruptly, shutting his eyes. Jirou glanced at him, slightly taken aback by his sudden shift in demeanour – Bakugou was somehow far more unsettling when he was calm than when he was shouting.

"Huh?"

"Keep playing," Bakugou instructed, cracking one scarlet eye open to stare at her balefully. "If it means so damn much to you. It's better than listening to those idiots down there."

It wasn't exactly the sweetest of encouragements Jirou had ever received, yet getting approval from Bakugou was a rare treat indeed and her cheeks warmed a little at the revelation that Bakugou liked her playing enough that he was happier to sit and listen to it, rather than return to the quiet solitude of his room. So, she made herself comfortable, sitting cross-legged and settling the guitar on her lap. With barely a pause, her fingers began to strum out a familiar song, the notes so clear that she could almost see them hovering in the air before her.

Bakugou grunted in apparent satisfaction and shut his eye again, settling more comfortably (or as comfortable as one could get leaning against cold bricks), though the transported, content expression on Jirou's face lingered in his vision long after he'd shut his eyes. She snuck a glance at Bakugou's face, before a little smile flitted across her face.

Neither Bakugou nor Jirou, up at the height they were, noticed the noise suddenly stop downstairs as Aizawa crashed the ground floor party in other to deliver another lecture on his disgruntled students and telling them to focus more on catching up on their sleep than messing around. Up on their isolated world on the rooftop, the only thing that mattered right then was the music that drifted into the night.

Later, when Bakugou eventually returned to his room, his temper considerably cooled since he'd left it, he found himself well aware of the silence that enveloped him as he got between the covers. Remembering the song that had lured him all the way up to the top, a peculiar sense of victory rippled in his chest over the fact that he'd gotten to hear something few others did, if by accident.

Plus, he could at least conclude something important from tonight's interruption of his sleep – not all noise from his classmates was necessarily so fucking annoying.

And in Jirou's case, if possible, he'd find some way to hear it again.


End file.
